A Meeting of Master and Student
by whodidthewhatnow
Summary: A fated meeting between a Master seeking revenge and a Student seeking to overcome her weakness, both will teach other more than mere martial arts. A meeting between Shirahama Honoka, little sister of the future History Strongest Disciple and Chun-Woo Han the Nine Arts Dragon.
1. A Meeting of a Master and a Student

Today is a grand day for a girl named Shirahama Honoka, nine years old. After all it's not every day that she's allowed to go walk to school on her own instead of her father driving her there.

In Honoka's opinion, her father worried too much, but considering that her brother was a bully magnet it's not too unreasonable to be watching for his little girl. Her brother could take the bullying to some degree, and in a sense he never allowed his parents to help him in that regard, but Honoka's father would never in a million years let anyone touch his precious little girl. Then again, the school she was attending were watchful for cases of bullying and she also had plenty of friends in class so the chance of her being a bullying victim was quite low indeed.

Quickening her pace she set to a light run, not wanting to be late and not catch her friends on the school entrance. She had made sure to wake up earlier than usual in order to walk to school, but she wasn't used to that yet and didn't knew how long it would take.

Deciding to sprint to get there faster, she couldn't help but wonder why the streets where unusually empty of passerby. She knew this route lead to several other school mates of her since she saw them on her way from her father's car. She didn't had much time to ponder about that since after only a minute of run she was already panting for breath. Fortunately for her she was already near the park, deciding to drink some water on the fountain before resuming her run.

Just before she started drinking, she spotted someone crouching on the roof the bathroom smoking. It was a well built man, with toned muscles, long black hair tied in a ponytail and sharp features, wearing a hawaiian shirt unbuttoned, black shorts and sandals on his feet.

"Hey you!" She tried to catch the man's attention. He turned his face down, taking a drag from his cancer stick. "Don't you know it's bad for your health if you smoke? That's what my father always tells me, and what are you doing on the roof?"

He just stared at her for a moment before taking yet another drag from his cigarrette. "Good for your father then brat."

"Don't call me brat you meanie! My name is Shirahama Honoka! Remember it!"

"Sure you are princess", he replied with mock reverence before pausing to take a closer look at Honoka, stroking his chin in thought. "Why are you wearing your bag? It's Saturday."

She just stared at the man in front of her. "We go to school on Saturday", she said as if talking with a particularly slow kid.

"It's the second Saturday of the month. Schools are closed today."

Honoka's thought ground to a halt, before she dropped to her knees in despair.

"NOOOOOOOO!" She had been had. Her father probably just forgot about it, while her mother was acting somewhat suspicious by giggling every so often when Honoka mentioned how awesome it would be to go to school alone. She should have knew better when her brother woke up late for breakfast and her mother didn't berate him for it.

She heard the man laughing and snapped her head up, but he had disappeared from sight, confusing the little girl. "Where did he went?"

"Here", he said from behind her, startling Honoka. She turned around and gave what she thought was a menacing glare at him, but she only managed to look adorable in doing so. "Well, looks like you wasted the morning midget. Pay more attention next time alright?" He pulled her yellow hat over her eyes, his laugh still echoing on Honoka's ears.

"I'M NOT A MIDGET AND MY NAME IS HONOKA!" She yelled back, but somehow he had already disappeared from sight. Once more this confused the girl. 'How did he disappeared? How strange...'

It was with those last thoughts that she returned home, the incident already half forgotten aside from a minor prayer not to ever meet someone as rude as him again.

~~O~~

"Good morning class", said the teacher cheerfully in front of the class, "due to Suzuki Yuri-san pregnancy leave I will substitute you as the new english teacher. My name is Kanten Wu, nice to meet you all."

There was a loud bang on one of the desks near the rear, and a couple of students turned around to see what it was.

Honoka had just banged her forehead on the desk, unable to cope with the absurdity of it all. Not only that rude man from before had reappeared, but now he had the gall to be her substitute english teacher? At least he was wearing proper pants today and his hawaiian shirt was buttoned all the way up this time.

"Oh, I didn't knew you were in this class squirt." He said in a light tone, as if it was an afterthought.

A vein was almost popping up on Honoka's forehead due to her anger. She was respectful of her teachers as a proper student should, but for him she would open a little exception. "I'm not squirt! My name is Honoka! Do you hear me? Ho. No. Ka."

The man just laughed it off and put his hands in a placation motion. "Alright, alright, just don't burn yourself ok? Since you're my student now, we better get along, right?"

Honoka doubted she would ever get along with him, but held her piece.

"This is going to be a long year", she muttered under her breath, dreading what trials would await her.

She were right in being wary of the future, for the entirely wrong reasons.


	2. Turnabout Point 1

A week passed, and Honoka was walking towards her school with her two close friends, Kasugano Sakura and Hyuuga Hinata. Those two were like night and day, one having a sunny and somewhat impulsive disposition, always ready to get into trouble, while the other was calm, collected and very polite, basically a modern day princess.

"Hey Hinata-chan, are you going to do anything this weekend? How about coming home to play some video games at my house? I finally managed to wrestle the console from my younger brother."

"He can actually play?" Said your friend with surprise, "isn't he six?"

Sakura looked deflated at that. "He's some kind of gaming prodigy I tell you. It's been a while since I won against him on fighting games, and my parents let him play with the console since he doesn't make a fuss when he's playing. I can only play those days when Tsukushi plays with his own friends."

This time it's Hinata who looks deflated. "I know how you feel. My sister is practically a genius when it comes to the family fighting style, being already much better than me when I was her age."

"Ah ~ ah, I feel so jealous of you two to be big sisters yourselves. Sometimes being the younger sibling is really annoying."

Both of Honoka's friends looked at each other before Sakura grabbed on her friend's neck. "Don't give me that! We know better than anyone that you love being spoiled by your family."

Hinata sighed at the antic at her two closest friends, but still held a smile of her own. Things were starting to get more tense on her house as time passed, something about inheritance, and she would welcome the distraction.

As the trio were walking, a white van with tinted glasses was parked at the side of the road. When Honoka managed to free her head from the hold, she swore she saw someone staring directly at her from those glasses, a shiver running down her spine.

She started to walk faster, to the protests of her friends.

~~O~~

She had to admit that even if her teacher was rude, he knew his stuff. He spent a good deal of the class with pronunciation, without skipping on syntax and grammar. He was also charismatic, well liked by the class and the other teachers in the school. Basically he became one of the most popular teachers in the school overnight.

Nothing about that would make Honoka have an issue with her teacher, far from it. It would make her reevaluate her previous position on him and probably become yet another one that thought he was a great teacher.

If it weren't for a single problem.

"Hey shorty, can you answer this question for the class?" He said with a grin, making a couple of Honoka's classmates chuckle at her new nickname.

In response Honoka ground her teeth, before standing up and very crisply answering the question. For the last few days he had keep calling her some iteration of either 'midget' or 'short', as if she was the shortest in the class (that honor fell on her female classmate Murakami-chan)! It was really annoying, and if he keep teasing her like that she felt like she would explode!

Some more energetic measures had to be taken, and with that in mind during lunch she went to the teachers lounge to talk with him about his attitude in class, but didn't found him there. "I heard him going to he rooftop", said one of the teachers, "but students aren't allowed... where did she go?"

It didn't take long to reach the rooftop, finding the door unlocked. She boldly opened the door, ready to meet with her rude and slightly goofy teacher.

Once the door was open, she saw him with his back turned. She was about to call him out when he turned, and somehow she knew something was wrong. Gone were the jovial, somewhat assholish demeanor in his posture. He had a serious look on his face, a cigar on his mouth while talking on the cellphone in a foreign language. When he noticed Honoka he said a few curt words before ending the call and taking a long drag from his cigar. He had a cold expression on his face that made Honoka uncomfortable, but she somehow managed to meet her gaze with him.

"I wanted to talk with you", she finally said after a moment of hesitation. "I want you to stop teasing me, calling short in front of the class all the time", she fidgeted a little before finding her next words and steeling her eyes, "it's mean, and I don't want people to mock me."

He just stared at her with a disinterested look before taking another drag from his cigar, and when Honoka was about to continue he interrupted her. "Sure, alright."

That nonchalant response confused her. "Hue? Really?"

He just shrugged. "The joke has run it's course already. No need to beat up a dead horse at this point, it would only be bullying the weak."

"Oh. Uh, ok then. If you're going to stop then that's fine."

He took few steps getting at Honoka's side, before ruffling her hair, his voice retaking some of the warmth that he became know on the class instead of the coldness from before when he were talking on the phone. "I will just call you squirt in private, shorty."

Buffing her cheeks, Honoka made to kick him in the shin but he graciously dodged her clumsy attack wih a laugh. "Try not to injure yourself shorty."

Honoka was fuming before going back to class, but true to his word he stopped calling her 'short' within hearing range of other people, and Honoka felt graceful for small mercies.

~~O~~

"ARGH! He's so infuriating!" Yelled Honoka as she were returning home with her friends. "What does he have against me?"

"I think he's just teasing you without malicious intent Honoka-chan". As usual, Hinata tried to be the voice of the reason, though he voiced the same opinion as Sakura.

"Not malicious? Can't you see how his eyes glean when he taunts me?"

"I see it more as light teasing between siblings myself", replied Sakura, "I do it with Tsukushi all the time."

Hinata nodded, since it was the same with her own sister.

"Onii-chan isn't that mean!" Protested Honoka, earning a sigh from Sakura.

"That's because your brother is too nice", said her friend.

"Well, he's the best!"

As the three friends were having their argument they passed a white van without noticing, and just as they were about to turn a corner, the three of them were caught from behind, a wet rag placed on their faces which quickly made them all pass out.

The trio where quickly placed inside the van, and it wouldn't be until at least an hour later until they would be missed.


	3. Turnabout Point 2

Gingerly, Honoka opens her eyes as her head pounds with a splitting headache. She was lying down on the ground with both her arms and legs tied up, and from a distance she could hear the faint sounds of people talking.

"You took too much of a risk!" Yelled a man, "it was too close to a school! Now our operations will need to be relocated not even a few days in!"

"Sorry boss", said another male voice, "but we saw the opportunity presenting itself and we took it. Besides, they will bring out a fair price, don't you think?"

"Normally yes", said the first voice, "they would fetch a good price but our new client asked 'strong children'. Though to be honest you can't ask for much if you need them to be under ten years old. Well, I suppose if we can't sell them to him we can try our other costumers, cute girls like them are always in demand, after all."

At that instant Honoka had instantly woken up, the full implications hitting her like a ton of bricks. While still too young the fully understand the world, she her and her friend's fate if nothing was done. At the very least she would never see her family again, and who know what kind of vile things would be done to her?

She tried to stand up and look out for her friends, but before she could do anything, three evil looking men entered the room. One of them had an annoyed look on him when he saw Honoka awake and sitting up.

"Damn it, one of them woke up."

"Just use the chloroform and be done with it. Even if she screams it's not like she can be heard from here anyway."

Honoka screamed, and as the man came to her she tried to run away but it was to no avail. She kicked and screamed and bitten as best as she could, calling for her father, mother and brother, but no one else but the men who kidnapped her were there to witness her despair, and once more a rag was put on her face, quickly knocking her out.

~~O~~

Defying possibility, Honoka woke up even weaker than before, her chest tight with her heart beating erratically, breath labored and an even bigger headache than before. She felt the ground under her lightly move, and she realized she was inside the back of a van. Slowly opening her eyes she saw a steel door only partially closed, and by straining her eyes she could see her guard dozing off on his seat facing away from her.

Heart nearly exploding with anxiety she tried to find her friends, but saw nobody else other than the driver on the vehicle. Slowly and deliberately she twisted her arms to put them in front of her, releasing the gag on her mouth and slowly untying her legs. Very carefully she creep towards her only escape route.

"One... two..." she whispered, and on the three she opened the door and jumped from the moving vehicle, dropping on the ground and rolling for a few meters, feeling her whole body hurt from the experience. With no time to waste she stood up and started to run away to freedom before the ones in the car came back to her.

She only made three steps before coming literally face-to-face with a truck.

The large vehicle moved in slow motion to Honoka, getting closer centimeter by centimeter towards her and she was unable to dodge, unable to blink, unable to even think.

Which was the only thing enabling her to witness the next events in perfect clarity.

Even while the world around her had ground a crawl, a man in a hawaiian shirt holding a plastic bag on his hand came running surprisingly fast in that frozen world, taking her away from the truck incoming path and into safety. Time returned to it's previous speed, and the truck drifts for a couple of meters before hitting the van of the kidnappers, making it spin away uncontrollably.

Honoka was starting to regain her bearings when she saw one of her captors getting out of the car and pulling a gun.

"Watch out!" She gave the warning as fast as she could, however soon she heard the sounds of gunshot.

*Glang!* *Glang!* *Glang!*

Three sounds she would associate with metal hitting metal came, and for a moment she thought the kidnapper had missed widlly, but once looking up she saw two unbelievable sights.

First, there was a quickly receding dark patch on his face, making his skin take a very deep tan for a few moments before it disappeared from sight. Second, the face of her rescuer belonged to no one other than her substitute english teacher!

"Stay here", he said firmly but not unkindly. Honoka dumbly nodded before her teacher stands up form his kneeling position near her, and suddenly he was punching the gunner in the face, crossing the distance between the two faster than a blink of the eye. To his credit the man inside the van quickly took off, turning and coming back with the intention to run over her teacher.

Instead of doing the sensible thing and dodging, her teacher pulled his fist back and hit the front of the van, making it stop with a loud crash and sending he driver across the street from the window of the car, glass embedded deeply on his face.

Finally Honoka's strength left her as her teacher came back to her, and he blacked out once more.

~~O~~

This time when Honoka wakes up, it is to greet her family on a hospital room, with her big brother being the first one to notice her waking up.

"Honoka!" He let out an excited yell. "Are you alright?"

Both parents turns their heads towards their daughter, before rushing in and hugging her.

She felt warm under their embraces, but it wasn't enough to stave off the feeling of emptiness she had inside her.

"Honoka, we were so worried about you", said her mother in a kind tone, "it's a miracle you came back unharmed."

"I'm not letting you go from and back to your school alone ever again!" Said her father with tears in his eyes, "not if this is what happens when you're out of my sight!"

Normally Honoka would protest the last remark, but she simply didn't had energy or will for that.

"What happened to my friends?" Asked the young girl, voice somewhat dull and mechanic.

"The police are still investigating any leads". At that answer from her father she remembers what the kidnappers where saying, and as implications of the news hit her he started sniffing, before the dam holding back her emotions finally breaks and she cries her heart out.

"Don't worry dear", comforted her mother, "I'm sure your friends will be safe, please have faith.

Honoka could only nods, leaning into the embrace.

~~O~~

A few days passed and fortunately all of Honoka's friends came back to safety one way or another, but not without changes. Hinata became shy and introverted, stuttering her words and fidgeting in nervousness, while Sakura started to gain an intensity, single minded determination and fire to her that most adults would call unhealthy. As for Honoka herself she felt empty, drained and helpless, but tried to mask that with a facade of cheerfulness pretending nothing was wrong with her.

None of the trio were also willing to tell anyone how they got rescued, for one reason or another that baffled the adults. They knew they were back into the hospital or another safe place unconscious, but the circumstances behind their rescue was shrouded in mystery.

Honoka wasn't sure why her friends weren't talking about their own rescues, but she wasn't going to pry, not when she had a secret of her own.

She didn't knew what to make out of her english teacher, since he simply acted normally the first time they meet once more, being nothing more than yet another concerned adult that gave no indication of rescuing her. Had she hallucinated all of that?

She shock her head, dismissing those thoughts. She knew what she saw, and was willing to get to the bottom of it.


	4. A New Apprentice?

Honoka steadied her breathing, before entering the teacher's lounge once more. She made a direct beeline to her english teacher desk, who was busy eating a very red, very spicy chicken drumstick.

"Is there something you need Honoka-chan"? He said with what she dubbed 'false politeness' since she knew he would call her either squirt or midget if they were alone.

Honoka looked around for a bit, and only saw a single teacher eating some cold bento before returning her gaze to her teacher. "Sensei, how did you do that?"

He raised an eyebrow before taking a bite of his lunch, not sure how to respond. "What do you mean?"

"I wanted to ask you how you saved me sensei."

The other teacher paused mid bite for an instant before returning to what he was doing, but it was apparent to the other two room occupants that he was listening.

"Sorry, but you lost me." He said with a scratch of his neck and a grim, "saved you from what?"

"Well, I know what I saw, and I saw you rescuing me from the kidnappers!" The last part came a bit more heated than Honoka wanted, but now that it's out of the bag she would go all out.

"Hoooo, am I in such high regards of yours that you thought it was me?" He said with a teasing grin, before pointing his chicken drumstick like a weapon at the girl. "You were probably scared and confused, it's understandable that your mind played tricks on you, even if I'm flattered you thought I rescued you."

"The man who saved me was wearing an open hawaiian shirt and smelled of tobacco", Honoka tried once more thought the seeds of doubts were starting to grow on her.

"I'm not the only person who likes those shirts or smoke, or even combines the two you know?" Finally thinking the conversation over, he takes another bite on his food.

"I know I heard your voice when you talked with me". Honoka tried once more, a hint of worry creeping on her voice.

"Like I said, your mind played tricks on you, or perhaps this person simply had a similar voice? It could happen."

"You... you punched the van to stop it from running you!" Now the hints of desperation started to be more clear, but her hopes increased when she saw him pause mid bite at her declaration.

"That's just insane", he said slowly while appraising you, "nobody can punch a van to stop it. I heard the car hit the lamp post, but nothing else."

'Was that what happened?' She unconsciously thought, idly remembering the news of the incident and half remembering something like that being mentioned. 'No, it can't be. I know what I saw!'

"They, they're lying!" Honoka was almost starting to cry, her eyes starting to water up, "you, you even took those bullets for me. On the f-face, using that w-weird b-b-black t-thing."

Now he openly scoffed at that remark, going back to the last of his very spicy chicken drumstick. "That's just silly, you know a person can't take a bullet to the face and stay unscratched. Since I don't have three bullet wounds on my face [I]obviously[/I] it didn't happened."

At this the girl's eyes widen, a grin spreading on her face before she started giggling. This confused the two man in the room. "What?"

She paused to recompose herself a little before giving her best chesire cat grin. "I never said how many bullets where fired."

His mouth opened and closed as if to protest, but not a sound came out before he frowned. Honoka knew he had been had.

"I knew it. I knew it I knew it IknewitIknewitIKNEWIT!" She said, voice getting loud by the second, startling the other teacher in the room. "I CAN'T BELIE -MMHMMFF?"

She's suddenly interrupted as her teacher shoves his chicken on her mouth, eyes immediately watering and tongue flaring as _liquid pain was poured into her very being_.

Taking that as his cue he throws Honoka over his shoulder before addressing the other teacher. "I'm going to borrow her for a while thanks bye."

~~O~~

After downing nearly a liter of water from the nearby faucet Honoka turned to her teacher. While he looked slightly amused by her suffering, he had a much more somber disposition than normal in class. "So you saw me performing a few unusual feats. I doubt however that anyone would take the word of a young, impressionable, overly imaginative scared child in consideration. You can't try to blackmail me brat."

Now that she thought about it, she didn't had much of a plan after getting to her teacher. "Uh...", she fidget, "well, I thought that maybe, you now, you could teach me how you did all that?"

The answer was both simple and immediate. "No."

"Can't you at least think for a moment?" Honoka tried, hopeful. Her teacher opened his mouth to reply before closing it, and apparently taking a pensive position. He was actually considering her request, thought Honoka excitedly.

After a long time passed, he gave his answer.

"No."

"What!" She said in shock, almost face planting from the answer before pointing a finger accusingly to him. "It's still the same answer!"

"Of course it is. I thought long and hard and listed all reasons why I should and shouldn't teach you, and the answer was obvious to me." He said before taking a cigar from his pocket. "Now, if there isn't anything else?"

Once more her eyes started to water, and she let out a sniff, "can I at least know why?"

"Do you know what the word Murin even means"? He asked her seriously before she shacked her head. "Just that alone disqualify you from being taught. You don't involve a non Murinim in their world."

"Uh... is a Murinim someone who can do what you did?"

"Of course."

"Then if you teach me, by definition I would be a Murinim so it would be alright?" Honoka tried, making her teacher blink once in pure shock.

"Am I looking at a mirror?" He whispers too lowly for Honoka to listen while he face palmed. Recomposing himself, he stared at the girl. "If you learn from me your life will be put at risk. Do you remember those kidnappers form before?" Honoka couldn't help the shudder at the mention of the incident, memories playing on her head. "If I teach you, [I]worse[/I] people will go after your life and the life of your family. They will use any means necessary to get what they want. Do you want to risk not only your life, but the life of your own family as well?"

She recoiled from that. She really didn't think thinks through, but on the other hand she never expected something like that was at stake. Then again, it's common sense that people don't take a bullet to the face and remain unscratched. Perhaps this Murin is some kind of secret society? Shacking her head to disperse those thought she went back to the matter at hand.

"I just wanted to be able to defend myself and my friends. I don't want to feel that helpless ever again."

He sighs, before taking a drag from his cigar. "That's not how the world works, you know?"

He pauses for a moment to contemplate how to continue, before staring at Honoka intently on the eyes. "This is a World of Law, where individual strength _shouldn't_ matter anymore, where you trust the systems and institutions put into place to both protect the innocent and prosecute the guilty. While it's not necessarily wrong to want to avoid the situation you were in, the whole point is that you're not supposed to take matters into your own hands."

He takes another drag, before looking around where they were talking. "Besides, you don't want to merely defend yourself. I know that look. If possible, you want to retaliate to the ones who took you, you want to punish them, you want vengeance, something society frowns upon. If you want to protect the weak, you could always become a police officer or join the military. The Murin however live in a World of Strength, where power is everything, where those with strength can do anything they want, _including_ kidnapping people. Associating with the Murin will bring only violence and death around you, and nothing good will come from it. Do you really want to associate yourself with them?"

She looked down, pensive and confused at her own intentions, hopes and dreams.

The silence was deafening, and stretched for a few long minutes, but her teacher allowed her to think and answer on her own time. Finally she looked up, a fierce gaze meeting with her teacher, almost startling him.

"I don't care", she finally said, "even if it's a World of Law I still want to protect myself, I still want to protect other, I still want to depend on myself."

She paused for a moment before taking a deep breath and continuing. "When I first woke up I tried to escape but it was for nothing. I couldn't run, I couldn't stand up, I couldn't even scream for help and be heard! My friends where _right there_ , unconscious and my trashing and struggles didn't even wake them up! When I woke up next I tried to escape once more, but a d-damn _truck_ was about to hit and k-kill me."

"I'm pathetic, I'm weak, I'm useless! I hate feeling like that!"

By the time she finished, she had tears running down her cheeks, eyes bloodshot, but it wasn't that visage that made her teacher pause.

For a moment, he saw a boy around her age, with a bloodied shirt and mud covering himself. He was soaked with rain, and had made a proclamation similar Honoka's.

He stared for a few moments more, before sighing. "Alright."

"Hue?"

"I'm going to train you."

Just as he uttered those words she tackled him like a missile, almost dropping him on the ground.

"THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU!"

"Let me finish you damn brat!" After disentangling from the overexcited girl he started to lay down the law. "First things first, you can't tell anyone about me training you. Not your friends, not your family. NO ONE. Or else you are instantly expelled as my student."

Honoka nodded. While she had some reservations on not talking to anybody, it seemed harmless enough.

"Second, I'm going to test you before properly teaching you anything. I can't really teach you martial arts if your body can't keep it up so for now you are going to go through a simple training regime, and when I feel you're ready we will continue from there."

Once more she nodded, sounded fair at least.

"Good", he finally said, surprising himself with what he had agreed to, "now run along, lunch time is almost over and I'd hate to be the one to keep you away from clean up."

She nodded excitedly before running off with a skip on her step.

Kanten Wu, also know as Chun-Woo Han the Nine Arts Dragon, looked on the horizon while old memories resurfaced. Memories of times good and bad, but fond nonetheless. "Was that what you felt when you accepted me, sunsengnim?"

He quickly dispersed those thoughts however. No way in hell was he teaching that brat the Black Heaven and Earth technique, he thought with a chuckle. While he might train her, and even teach her a few advanced moves, he knew plenty of lesser ki techniques to pass on and still make her a formidable opponent. He had done so in the past without problems for those involved save for what they made themselves so he was confident this time would be the same.

Yes, nothing could go wrong.


	5. Pre-Basics Training 1

As she helped her mother clean the dishes, she couldn't help but remember the talk she had with her master.

 _"The training will be simple. You will run ten kilometers, perform one hundred sit ups, one hundred squats and one hundred push ups and make sure the push ups are made without your knees on the ground. You will perform this training regime at the bare minimum every day no matter what before I teach you something more advanced."_

 _"Uh, Wu sunsengnim", she said the unfamiliar word a bit hesitantly, "how I'm supposed to run for ten kilometers every day?"_

 _"That's not my problem", he stated with a shrug, "think of it as a test, to see how far you're willing to improve and how much you want to be trained by me. I can give you a few occasional pointers in your training, but frankly this is such elementary stuff you should be able to handle it on your own."_

 _"I'm only nine", the girl reminded her master, who once again shrugged._

 _"So was I when I started training. I'm sure you will figure something out."_

After they finished washing the dishes Honoka tried her best to calm down and not fidget. She'd need to do this perfectly or else all was lost before it even began. "Kaa-san, can I ask you a favor?"

Her mother turned to her daughter, her ever present serene expression cracking at the seams. It's been nearly a week since the [I]incident[/I], and while her daughter managed to hide the full extent of how much she was affected by it to her father and brother, for Saori Shirahama it was clear as the day that her daughter was still deeply affected by what happened.

Which was why she had hopes of Honoka finally opening up to her since then. Perhaps with this she could start to regain a bit of her cheerful nature instead of plastering that fake smile that broke Saori heart every time she saw it.

"What is it dear?"

"Uh, you see, I wanted to improve my health a bit by starting running and I wanted permission to go."

In a sense Saori was happy that her child was taking some effort to move past her trauma, considering Honoka didn't complained when her husband demanded to bring and take her from school, remaining silent through the trip the few times she accompanied her. Still...

"I"m sorry dear", she said with a pain in her chest, "but the streets are too dangerous those days", which basically translated to 'we are afraid something might happen', "why don't you run on your school instead?"

"Hmm, I honestly didn't thought of that", Honoka replied before frowning, "but dad always comes at the school right after it ends, leaving me little time to do stuff."

"If you promise to stay on the school grounds I can ask your father to take you later. I do know that he's forcing himself to bring you back by leaving his work early, and I'm sure the school itself is safe."

Honoka nodded, before looking up again. "But I wanted to run before and after the school too."

Now that's strange, thought Saori. "Why's that dear?"

"Weeeell", Honoka said in that familiar 'I'm saying something but thinking of something else' tone of hers, "more exercise, more improvements, right?" She tried with a nervous smile, but her mother was impassive since she knew very well that was a shitty excuse.

How to explain to her mother that she want to improve as fast as possible so she could be properly trained by her sunsengnim? How to explain to her that she didn't want to be so pathetic, so useless again? "I, I just, I just wanted to be better", she finally managed, her voice cracking and lowering to a whisper as she continued. "If only I could do something back then, if only I could have ran away and call for help..."

She's interrupted in her musings as her mother kneels in front of her giving Honoka a tight hug, softly stroking her hair. "There, there dear. It's alright now." Honoka returns the hug and the two of them stay like that for a few moments before her mother looks up. "I still think the streets are too dangerous for you to go alone, but I'm sure we can think of something."

~~O~~

Almost a month later, Honoka is sprawled on the ground, her body and heart hurting from the exercise. "Why it's so hard?" She asked to no one in particular.

"I'm actually curious about that myself", came the sudden reply from a familiar voice, before Honoka looked up to see her master. "It's not like the training regime is that hard, even for a little girl like you, and you do run that ten kilometers in smaller piece after all. Here, stand up and show me your back."

She gingerly obliged, still panting from her exercise before she felt the hand of her teacher on her back, then she felt something warm pressing against her chest. "What was that?"

"So you have it", said her master almost ignoring her, "it's only a mild case, but still it unfortunate."

"I have a what now?"

"It's called a Yin type body. Some of your ki pathways are blocked, which manifest in the body as intermittent sickness. You have the One-Yin type body, which manifests usually as a heart murmur at least, but other types heart problems aren't unheard off."

Realization dawned on Honoka. "I heard about something like that when I went to the doctor when I was little. He said it might cure itself as I get older."

Her master shock his head. "If it were a minor illness that would be right, but I felt the resistance your ki pathway had earlier. It's basically incurable unless you have access to special types of spirit medicines, and they're both unavailable to you and are expensive to boot. Still your case is mild so keep doing what you're doing and you should be fine."


	6. Pre-Basics Training 2

"Honoka, are you feeling well?" Asked Honoka's friend Sakura, concern in her eyes, "it's been awhile since you came to play in the recess. Are you sick?"

"I-I a-am worried t-too H-honoka-chan. W-w-what happened?" Her other friend Hinata also came at her side, fidgeting a little in nervousness.

Truth be told the training regime was simply too harsh for her even with her sunsengnim reassurances. The runs were too long for her due to her size and age, not counting her one-yin type body to complicate matters, and the strength training was too hard for her due to lack of muscle tone at her age. Yet, she didn't dared to stop even a single day, as that would break the agreement with her sunsengnim and she wasn't sure what would happen afterwards.

"I'm fine", she tried, but both her friends just _stared_ at her before she relented. "Alright, I'm tired because I'm training during the day."

Sakura looked thoughtful, but Hinata knew something didn't add up with what her friend said. "A-aren't you j-just e-exercisi-i-ing after s-sc-school?"

Honoka tried to stay silent, but the eager look from her friends melted her resolve. "I'm actually training at three different hours of the day. Early at morning, after school and before going to sleep."

Sakura looked rather interested in that. "You're training really seriously Honoka! Did you start training martial arts too like us?"

"Hue?"

That was news to Honoka. She knew that Hinata was learning her family own style of martial arts since she was little, even if she wasn't particularly good at it according to her friend. Sakura however never had showed an interest in martial arts before, she liked to practice various sports and was taking an interest in the track and field club before the kidnapping attempt. Did something also change to her usually excitable friend, pondered Honoka as she looked at her.

"Since when are you training martial arts Sakura-chan?" Honoka finally asked after regaining her bearings.

"Ah. A few days ago mostly", she looked rather embarrassed for some reason, "I'm trying to mimic some movements I saw on some old tapes I have on my house, while my father helps me with physical exercise."

Honoka nodded, and her two friends returned to her, expectant of what Honoka had to say.

"... uh, I can't talk about it", she finally settle down with her stomach turning inside her, "I promised."

"I u-understand H-honoka c-chan", allowed Hinata since her situation was similar herself. While her family training itself wasn't a secret, what exactly went into it _was_ and she knew how being pressured to talk is uncomfortable.

Sakura was disappointed, but didn't comment further on it.

It still made Honoka feel bad about hiding things from her two best friends, but the deal with her sunsengnim was a deal after all, but since now they all knew what she did on her free time…

"Do you girls want to train with me too? It's a bit lonely running sometimes, even if my mother accompanies me during the mornings and evenings."

Sakura was ecstatic. "Sure! We can meet at your house since it's closer to school! I will talk with my parents to let me come in. What about you Hinata?"

Hinata was more reticent about that before shyly nodding. "I t-think I c-can a-ask f-f-father t-to allow m-me to come. I-If it's o-only p-ph-physical e-exercise he s-shouldn't have a p-problem with i-it."

"Then that's settled!" Almost yelled Sakura, "this is going to be sooo cool! We're going to get _awesome_ together!"

Honoka couldn't help but smile at the exuberance of her friend. In her opinion, she was the one that changed the least from the experience, which gave her both a much needed sense of normalcy and relief at the same time a pang of jealousy creep on her mind. Fortunately the last part was easy for the girl to squash and ignore.

"You're right! We three together can do anything!" Honoka finally said with a smile that wasn't nearly as strained as the others she gave those days, "isn't that right Hinata-chan?"

She hesitated for a moment, before smiling and nodding. "Y-yes, t-that's right."

The three of them raised their hands, and in a quick motion did a high five. An act that the three of them haven't done in a long time in their own opinion.

~~O~~

"You have been busy", said Kanten Wu from where he was smoking on the grass under a tree that surmised the inner garden, where his sort of apprentice sat down herself to catch her breath after another long day of training. "With your friends no less." He said the last point with a hint of accusation on his tone.

"You didn't told me not to train with them, just that I couldn't talk about anyone else you were training me, and I haven't."

He grunted in response, accepting the point. "To be honest I thought you would spend more time with them instead of looking up for me here".

"Well… I wanted to know more about my sunsengnim. Other than you being an english teacher and being really strong, I don't know much about you."

"That's because most of everything isn't your business", he snapped at her making the young girl wince at his tone, making him sigh. "Sorry, but most of my past is a sore point to me. I won't say that everything was an awful mess, but the good points became all painful to remember and bittersweet at best of times."

Honoka made an 'oh' shape with her mouth before she straightened up. "Can't you tell me a bit of yourself them? Things like hobbies, likes and dislikes, stuff like that?"

"That sounds… reasonable" he allowed, "but I don't really know much about you either. Why don't you go first?"

"Oh, alright. Well, my hobbies include karaoke and board games like othello, go and shougi. What I like is my oniichan, some sweets like cake and dogs. I don't like math and centipede, those creep me out". Left unsaid however was how much she _HATED_ kidnappers, but the sheer burning hate show in her eyes would make that blatantly obvious to anyone who knows the young girl. "What about you sunsengnim?"

"Hmm, I never had much in the way of hobbies when I was a kid, and most of what I like to do is not for children ears", he said with a smirk, "I like smoking in certain special occasions, food so spicy you can use it as a weapon and the short of expensive whiskey you drink on some high class bars. What I dislike are creepy, greedy old man and their flunkies who are either cowards to speak up or so set in tradition that when they see injustice going in front of them they prefer to remain silent instead of helping."

The last bit came as a surprise to Chun-Woo Han, but while it told a great deal it was also harmless enough for now and would probably sate the curiosity of his sort of apprentice if she knew what was good for her.

Honoka for her part just remained silent, wanting to know more but knowing when the topic is too sensitive for the time being.

~~O~~

Honoka was helping one of her classmates to bring some things from the storage room to her class, when she bumped into something and spilled everything on her hands.

"Sorry", came the automatic reply on the girl's lip as she bend down and started to grab clean up the mess she made on the floor, before she saw a long pair of legs kneeling in front of her. Looking up, she saw that it was a beautiful woman with a slender hourglass figure, large breasts and wide hips along with very long smooth brown hair and thin eyes with long eyelashes.

As she wondered what someone who looks like a model is doing in her school the mysterious woman starts to help Honoka in taking her things. "Sorry miss, you don't need to bother."

The woman just chuckles and continued helping Honoka, "it's nothing dear. It was my fault you dropped everything after all."

After they finished their task, the mysterious woman stared intently to Honoka for a few moments, making the girl a little uncomfortable. "I need to go", she finally said.

The woman nodded with a smile. "My name is I Shiho, I'm substituting your school nurse for a while. If you need anything, please drop to my office at any time."

Nodding, Honoka turned and went back to her class, already getting late by now.

Shiho keep staring at the back of the retreating girl for a few moments before she looked thoughtful. "So this is the girl who Chun-Woo Han went out of his way to help? I better take a good look at her in the future."


	7. Turnabout Point 3

Another full month have passed since she started training with her sunsengnim, and Honoka was limping to the nurse office after she fell and scratched her knee.

As Honoka opened the door to the infirmary she saw once more the beautiful school nurse, looking at something on her hand, before she almost jumped and turned towards the girl. "Oh, hello there. Do you need something?"

"I scrapped my knee. Can you take a look?"

"Of course", said Shiho, "come in and I will disinfect it."

In no time the nurse had taken the necessary instruments and started to clean up the wound. "How did you got wounded?" She asked the girl trying to make some small talk.

"I was running and I slipped", replied Honoka as she winced at the disinfectant burning sensation. "It hurts."

"There, there", said the older woman while patting Honoka in the head, "it's alright now, I'm done. I need to take some bandages from the storage room so wait here for me, alright? Also there are some dango on that plate over there", she pointed at the table nearby, "help yourself to some if you want. I will be back in a minute."

As the nurse left, she didn't realized the small box she was looking before had fallen over, and a small white ball eerily familiar with a common dango had rolled near the front of the plate.

~~O~~

"So this is where you were hiding yourself Chun-Woo Han", said Shiho Lee of the Black Forest Alliance to the Nine Arts Dragon and current substitute english teacher of Shinohara Primary School, "I never thought you would go as far as travel to Japan to hide."

"My sunsengnim mentioned that his former disciple was japanese, so I decided to see what the country looked like", he replied without looking down from the tree branch he was sitting which had a good view of the field, "I never thought you would track me down across the sea just to see my handsome face. Did you miss me so much?"

"As if", she said with a scoff before leaning against the tree. "Thinking on taking roots here? You even took on an apprentice…"

He dropped from the tree almost instantly, right in front of her with a glare that could kill lesser men. Considering some of the techniques the Nine Arts Dragon learned over the years, he probably could do that unironically.

"I told the brat not to babble to others", he said with a snarl before he properly looked at the woman in front of him, who had a wide smile on her face. His eyes narrowed for a moment before he took the cigar from his mouth. "You set me up."

She didn't answer immediately, only smiling meaningfully before continuing. "I admit I'm curious about what that girl have in special to make the Goomoonryong train her. You're probably very confident in her ability if you're willing to risk her existence to the Martial Arts Alliance."

This time it was Chun-Woo Han who scoffed. "She's my apprentice on the account that I will teach her [I]something[/I], but not [I]the[/I] most important something. She's barely able to conclude the physical training, and by the time she's fit to learn some actual martial arts I will be out of the country once more. If she manages to impress me I might leave her a few advanced techniques, but not [I]that[/I]."

At the admission the school nurse pouted. "Awww, and here I thought someone else had cracked that black hole you call a heart. It would be so cute for you to fuss over a girl who could be your little sister or even your daughter."

The substitute english teacher turned around and took another drag from his cigar, careful not to let how those words and the image they evoked had affected him. "Stop talking nonsense and tell me why you came all the way from Korea to this school. It's not like I dropped entirely from the radar to the Black Forest Alliance."

"No, you just did the next best thing and went straight into the city Ryozanpaku is located."

Chun-Woo Han blinked at that information. "They're HERE? Why nobody told me that?"

"You didn't know?" This time it was Shiho who was surprised, "but our informant told us you knew exactly where you were going."

The Nine Arts Dragon frowned, wracking his brain for the memories and but being unable to remember talking with anyone about his next destination, only getting the tip that this city was 'safe enough for his purposes', "what this informant looked like?"

"I think I have a photo of him here…"

They both looked at the photo, of a tall muscled man in a white hooded cloak with long clear hair, an almost white purple color, and he had a confident smirk on his face.

"Really now?" He asked incredulously, "doesn't he look the least bit familiar to you? Like how he's supposed to be this really important figure in the parent organization?"

Shiho was silent for a few moments before sighing, "I really should have paid more attention when I meet with him. Guess he was just playing a prank on us all…" After a few moments she shook her head. "Well, I guess most of my plans are useless now, unless..."

At this her smile returned, taking a teasing air to it, "could you take me to dinner this weekend? For old times sake?"

"Sure", he replied with a smile of his own, "you're paying though, I still remember the time you stood me up."

Not one of my best ideas, thought the woman before reluctantly nodding. "It will allow us to talk more in deep about business at the very least. I wanted you to take a look at the prototype I have with me."

"Prototype?"

"Of the Il-Wol Sin-Dan, the prototype of the first of the three future planned spirit medicines we will produce. It's yours if you want, I'm sure it will help you with your revenge."

He knew of the reputation of the clan that made those spirit medicines, and he also knew they were basically tailor made for his martial art due to it's strong ki production potential, but he wasn't aware they were so far away in the research. "I will think about it."

"Good. If you want, I have it in my office right now, right next… to…"

Realization dawned on Shiho and her face became pale, before she turned around and grabbed on Chun-Woo's hand dragging him along for the ride.

"What's going on?"

"I think I screwed up. Now hurry or else we will have to explain away a corpse on the infirmary!"

They turned a corner quickly, and soon they entered the room to the sight of Honoka clutching her stomach and a plate almost empty of dango. "I think I ate too much."

Shiho looked around the table, finding the box with the spirit medicine empty. After quickly checking the remaining sweets, she let out a curse. "She ate it."

Chun-Woo Han turned around instantly. "Spit it out, now!"

Honoka tried to reply, but her world had turned red for a moment, before darkness claimed her.


	8. Turnabout Point 4

As Honoka woke up, her _everything_ hurt in that annoying way similar to catching a particularly vicious cold. Her body felt hot and cold at the same time and her joints hurt, her chest felt tight and she felt difficulty in breathing.

"Fuuu… haaa…"

She turned her head to the sound of a familiar voice, her sunsengnim sitting cross legged on the ground and sweating profusely, and for once he wasn't smoking while outside class.

"Sunsengnim?" Honoka tried tiredly, catching her teacher's attention with a nod but otherwise he didn't moved from his position.

"You gave us quite a scare", came another voice on the other side of the bed and she saw the nurse sitting on a nearby chair. "Do you know how lucky you are we found you while you were still conscious? If we were late even a minute you would have been dead by now."

"Sorry for eating all that dango", Honoka finally answered after a few moments of silence.

Shiho sighed before shaking her head. "No, I'm the one who's supposed to be apologising. I left a dangerous medicine on the same table as the sweets and from what I saw it probably had rolled right in front of the food. If anything, it's my fault you're in this state."

Honoka didn't said anything, confused about her words. Didn't she just got sick from overeating sweets?

"That aside, we must discuss your future right now." The nurse continued just as her sunsengnim stood up and got a nearby towel to wipe himself. "Because as of right now you will be deep into the world of Murin."

"Am I now, really?" Asked Honoka with a elated tone that disturbed the school nurse, who promptly looked at Chun-Woo Han.

"What the hell have you done to this kid?" She said in a disbelieving tone at the Nine Arts Dragon.

He for his part was utterly unflappable. "Don't look at me, the kid's messed up. Then again, after what happened it's understandable she snapped under pressure."

"You need to tell me more about that. I didn't get the full story from the higher ups when I came here."

" _She_ is right here, you know?" Interrupted Honoka a bit annoyed by how they talked over her.

"Right, sorry about that", Shiho wasn't quite sheepish when she answered but it was a close thing, something Honoka took as a small win. "It's better if you sunsengnim explain to you how it's going to work."

"Basically", he said while taking a cigar, but at a dirty look directed from Shiho made him reconsider and pocket it for now, "I need to [I]formally[/I] introduce you as my apprentice. The type of spirit medicine you ate is normally extremely powerful, forcing your body to generate tremendous amount of ki from your body, and requires an advanced understanding of proper breathing techniques to steady the flow of ki, meaning only advanced students or near masters should take this medicine."

He sat on another chair near Honoka's bed, continuing his explaining. "The difference with the spirit medicine you [I]actually[/I] ate is several orders of magnitude stronger than that, not counting the fact that your younger body demands a much more through ki flow technique in order to steady its newly improved ki production. Only one of them would demand you to be immediately taught some of the strongest ki flow techniques in existence, but both of them at once demands nothing less than the absolute best."

At his next words he leans forward to look at Honoka directly in the eyes. "Meaning that you need to be taught directly my school of martial arts, the Black Heaven and Earth school and it's secrets. You should feel grateful that your sunsengnim isn't the heartless bastard some make him out to be. If I were it would be all too easy to slip past this school and let your cooling carcass rot on the ground."

"I already knew you weren't a heartless bastard", Honoka answered promptly earning a surprised look from both of the adults in the room. "You saved me when you had nothing to gain, and you did so on reflex since I was this close from dying. At the very least, you can't be evil."

Shiho looked between the two other room occupants trying to divine what the hell they were talking about, when Chun-Woo Han sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation. "Anyway I will need to skip a few steps and start teaching you the advanced stuff immediately, otherwise the production of ki in your body will break down the cells of your body causing catastrophic morphologic destruction."

Honoka looked at her sunsengnim for a moment before looking at the other adult in the room. "What?"

"It means you will literally explode with all the energy inside you." Shiho helpfully supplied the young girl.

"Oh." The young girl said, letting the words finally sink in. "Does that means I get to learn all the cool stuff you do sunsengnim?"

Once more Shiho looked up with a disbelieving look at Chun-Woo Han, who once more sighed and was tempted to go after his cigar anyway.

"Like I said, she completely snapped", he finally said sounding a lot more tired than he already was.

"There's something else you have to take into account Honoka", said Shiho trying to ignore that for now, "you can't tell your parents and family about what you are learning, or about the world of Murin. If word gets out that you are the official disciple of the Nine Arts Dragon, literally people all over the world would come after you, either to use you as leverage against him or to try and extract his secrets through you."

This time Honoka hesitated for a few moments before nodding. "Alright. I was asked not to tell them about sunsengnim training anyway and I held my promise. I'm not going to babble now that things gotten more serious."

Shiho looked at Chun-Woo Han yet again, and he simply muttered 'snapped' as if that answered all questions regarding the girl.

Perhaps it did.


	9. Explaining Ki

"I'm sorry for my daughter causing so much trouble", said Saori at the school nurse, sitting at the side of her daughter bed on the school infirmary.

"No, it's alright. I should have be more careful when I gave her the sweets, I didn't knew she would have an indigestion so badly, I'm ashamed to say that probably some of the sweets had gone bad", replied Shiho while bowing to the girl's mother, "fortunately her fever came down and she should be able to go home right in time as the school closes."

This time it was Saori who bowed. "I will make sure that my daughter learns to not stuff herself full of sweets and to make sure that what she is eating isn't spoiled."

Shiho nodded, "just follow the diet I recommended and she should be fine by tomorrow."

"Once again I thank you for your timely assistance, Shiho-san…"

Before she could continue a man opened the infirmary door with enough violence to almost break it apart. " _Where's my daughter?_ "

Honoka put her head behind the blankets in embarrassment. "Daaaad."

Saori sighed at her husband antics, while being internally glad that he was so devoted to his family.

She wouldn't like it any other way.

~~O~~

The next day after school her sunsengnim asked her to show him her bareback, performing the same procedure he did when he stabilized her newly enhanced ki flow for the first time, but more easily than before.

After a few minutes passed he took a drag from his cigar, visibly tired from the experience.

"Sit down and get comfortable, because we're going to be here for a while until you learn the basics of my technique. First however, a little theoretical lesson: do you know what ki is?"

Turning around Honoka looked at her master, scrunching her face trying to figure out if she ever heard of that term before. "I think I read that in a manga once? Something about martial arts ability?"

"That's not entirely wrong", he admitted, "but it is inaccurate. Ki is both an energy innate to all living beings and an energy that exist in nature, like the trees and rocks and the air. Some people claim that a healthy body produces more ki, while others say that an unhealthy body is the product of lack of ki, but in the end it doesn't change the fact that the source of ki is the same."

He took another drag from his cigar, making sure to not blow the smoke on his student.

"There are some flowery explanations about the nature of ki, but they're just washing poetic from a time that we didn't properly understand the human body. The true nature of ki is simpler than that."

"It's the combination of three flows in the body: the blood flow, the breathing flow and the nervous system flow. By synchronizing them and making them behave in a specific way you can direct the flow of ki, pass it through your ki pathways in the body and gather it on your ki center that rests in your navel in order to use it later. The more ki you gather in your navel, the stronger your overall ki levels will become. Some people in ancient times called this 'ki cultivation'. With me so far?"

Honoka nodded. "Blood, Breathing and Nerves, got it."

Chun-Woo Han wasn't entirely sure but continued anyway. "It's relatively easy to change the blood flow, although the tricky part is in making it behave the specific way necessary for ki flows. For that we use the breathing techniques in order to both regulate the breath flow and the blood flow. The secret however lies in the last flow, the nerves flow. It's not enough that you can use the breathing techniques correctly, you need to synchronize your nerves flow, or as some say, you have to posses the right 'intent' when performing the exercises and for that meditation is necessary."

"Only when you combine breathing techniques and it's respective meditation method that ki can flow properly. It's why how the governments trying to learn the secrets of ki had failed until now, they are trying to reinvent the wheel using scientific process and expecting to see reliable results in such a short time when the act is closer to an art, not counting the fact that deducing ki techniques required hundreds of years of trial and error. Of course certain spirit medicines can bypass that restriction, but they are very rare exceptions to the rule."

"Sunsengnim, but doesn't the governments can ask for someone who can use ki to teach them?"

She's sharper than she looks, thought her master. "Some government does, but due to the nature of ki you can't simply train a large batch of soldiers in it. Each people development is different and only those with talent would be ready to use ki in the time frame expected for military forces, it's far easier to teach someone how to use a gun and become a threat to low level ki users than to teach a whole company to be ki users in the same allowed time. Perhaps they have some special forces that can use ki, but becoming an user alone isn't enough."

"You could say that the development of a Murinin takes two phases, the development phase and the growth phase. The development phase happens when you aren't a user and condition your body to use ki and learn the proper ki flow techniques, this phase can last as low as one year to a whole decade depending on the talent of the student, and while having ki coursing through your body will enhance your physical abilities it isn't to the point of making much of a difference for your body mass, and because of that the students are usually taught when they are very young in order to reach their full potential. The growth phase is when the user starts to enhance their inner ki reserves, which can take several decades depending on the technique and talent of the user, until they reach the level of a real master and are able to trivialize an armored platoon on their own without problems."

"You can fight against a whole army and win?" Asked Honoka surprised at her sunsengnim strength. She knew he was strong, able to perform feats that defied common sense, but to take on a whole army was simply surreal.

Chun-Woo Han for his part didn't bother to mask how smug he looked to his apprentice. "Not only a conventional army, but an army of ki users too." At this his face darkened for an instant before muttering his next words too low for Honoka to hear.

"Uh, sunsengnim?" Asked Honoka, a bit worried about her master, "is something wrong?"

Chun-Woo Han looked at the girl before taking a deep breath and calming himself. "It's nothing that concerns you. Anyway, normally we only teach breathing techniques to those apprentices with enough minimum necessary fitness in order to be able to feel the ki flow, otherwise it wouldn't help much. But since you have an unusually large amount of ki due to the spirit medicine we will start your breathing technique right away."

The teacher paused for a moment to regard his student. "Well, that's not entirely accurate. The Black Heaven and Earth school teaches that you need to learn proper breathing techniques as soon as possible, but nobody else needs to know that. Are you ready for your first lesson?"

Honoka nodded, eager to start. Finally she would start to train to become more like her sunsengnim!

"Alright, this is what you're going to do…"

~~O~~

A few hours later she was exhausted, and she didn't even perform any physical activity beforehand!

For his part Chun-Woo Han was impressed. While she wasn't a prodigy by any means, she certainly had talent, and perhaps in a year or so could completely master the basics.

"You done well", he praised her making her perk for a moment, "but that's not enough. You will need to train hard in the future in order not to blow up due to your ki production killing you. Also you will have to increase the pace of your physical training in order for your body not to break down with all that energy inside it. Because of that you will have to perform the basic training I told you faster than before. Don't worry about it, your new ki allows you to complete the exercise easier, and due to the spirit medicine you ate your previous One-Yin body type has been cured, which is good news since cured yin body types confer a great advantage over normal martial artists, turning a former curse into a blessing."

"Alright sunsengnim, I won't disappoint you!" Exclaimed Honoka while quickly standing up, before her head felt light and she dropped on the ground. "Eh he, I guess I'm a bit tired."

Chun-Woo Han sighed before sitting at her side. "Just rest a bit before your parents come back for", before he could finish however he saw that his apprentice was already taking nap on the ground.

For a moment he saw another youth sprawled on the ground, napping after an intense training session. He could almost feel the protective gaze on his back looking at the youth on the ground, and for a moment he didn't saw a school, but rather a forest with a small man made cavern near a hill.

"I just hope my decision won't endanger my disciple, sunsengnim…" He said to no one in particular while he protectively watched his apprentice.


	10. First Fight

The days passed and Honoka started her breathing technique training. It was much harder work than she initially expected, after all she would spend most of her time sitting down but in reality it was the most demanding exercise regimen she had up until now, requiring an intense amount of focus and concentration in order to get it right. And she was expected to use those breathing techniques to fight one day? She could hardly believe it.

Her physical training also started to get much better now, before she always ended the exercises like she was about to collapse from exertion, but now she could finish the runs and strength training without having her chest trying to jump from her throat. Not only that but she felt that she could start pushing her body further and further forwards when before she was barely breaking it even.

Overall things where going really well for her, and she felt really optimistic that her good mood would last forever.

~~O~~

"Why world, why do you taunt me so much?" Honoka said with a sigh of resignation while looking at the scene in front of her.

Her brother had volunteered to walk Honoka and her friends back home, and the time she on the bathroom in the park on the way back her home was all it took for a small group of middle schoolers, from Kenichi school if Honoka's guess was right, were standing in front of her brother and friends.

"So, is the loser and his little girlfriends have anything to say?" Said one of the bullies, stepping forwards menacingly before Kenichi tried to defend the other two girls but getting hit in the jaw, the lucky hit managing to knock him out.

"Oniichan!" Yelled Honoka while dashing towards the group. While her physical abilities had improved she wasn't arrogant enough to believe she could take on a group of upperclassmen, even if somehow her friends helped her.

She did however had a trump card under her sleeve and prayed that it would work. As her sunsengnim told her before, when you channel ki through your body it naturally become stronger, tougher and faster even if no advanced skill is used, the same went for the Black Heaven and Earth school. In fact due to her school being based on efficient ki flows this natural increase in power would be disproportionately higher compared with other styles.

With each step she tried to calm herself and go through the motions of her breathing technique, before she was at the side of her friends, the two of them taking unknown fighting stances. Since she herself wasn't taught how to properly fight yet she set on a natural stance with her feet slightly apart and her arms loose at her side, careful to maintain her breathing.

"Oh, the little girls want to fight, isn't that cute guys?" Said the one who looked like the leader, earning a couple of laughs from his lackeys, "let's show the little princesses the real world is far from-"

Honoka didn't let him finish, quickly taking advantage of the feeling of her ki flowing in her body to lightly step under his guard and kick him in the groin as hard as she could, following by an uppercut on his chin just as his face dropped lower with pain. As if that was a signal both her friends attacked, with Sakura at her left going for a straight kick directly at the knee of one of them before twisting up and hitting him on the face as he bend over in pain, while Hinata performed a brutal palm strike on the ribs of another one followed by a rapid succession of finger strikes at his already abused ribs making him drop on the ground howling in pain.

The last goon could only stare in shock as three primary schoolers dealt a devastating blow to three of his friends, meaning now he was the one outnumbered. While the others would give him a lot of flak later, he did the immediately smart thing and turned tail, fleeing from the scene. As their last backup had fled the downed thugs looked at each other and decided that discretion was the better part of valor and grabbed their almost unconscious leader and limped away from the three very dangerous little girls.

The three of them looked at each other in surprise, not really knowing what to think of their respective friends. While energetic Sakura never had formal instruction in martial arts before and yet she performed a difficult move rather easily, and Hinata while already knowing martial arts from her family style never had showed anyone how strong she was, surprising everyone that the gentle girl could be so advanced in her style. As for Honoka she was the most surprising since she never had been active or had any interest in martial arts, and yet her blows was the fastest of the group and arguably the strongest in sheer physical ability alone, at least for that ephemeral moment.

"Wow", said Honoka after a few moments, "we rock!"

Tension broken Sakura giggled at the situation before pointing at the thugs they defeated. "Did you see their faces when we beat them? That was so awesome!"

Honoka nodded quickly in agreement and even Hinata had a small smile on her face before she remembered something. "I-I think w-we need to w-wake up your b-brother H-honoka-chan."

"Kenichi!" Honoka said in alarm before going after her brother. She hopped he was alright and wasn't too injured.

~~O~~

"So", said her master on the next day of school, "I heard you beat some middle schoolers?"

"How did you know?" She yelled in alarm before catching herself. "I mean, I don't know what you're talking about?"

Her master expression was unreadable, and Honoka had no idea if he was mad or not at her. If he was, would she be punished? Would she stop being trained? Frankly she was scared of his wratch and wanted nothing more than to run away, but instead she just opened her mouth and said "at least we won?"

Her master stared at her for a few moments more before sighing. "This must be karma, I'm paying for all those years I was a pain in the ass to my own sunsengnim."

"Uh, sunsengnim? Are you angry?" Honoka said while looking down in shame, and once more Chun-Woo Han sighed.

"I really don't have a leg to stand when it comes to fighting like that", he finally admitted, "but you're not ready to fight. I still haven't taught you how to even throw a punch, I'm more surprised that you didn't break your wrist while fighting with those morons."

"Does that mean I'm not in trouble?" She hopefully asked.

"I'm going to increase your training regimen, if you have enough free time to get into fights, certainly you have time to train more."

"That's, that's not fair!"

He simply snorted at that notion. "Life not fair brat, the sooner you realize that the better. Besides it will end up helping you in the long run. I was about to increase your training soon anyway, this just move up our schedule, specially if you are able to use the Breathing Technique to fight." He took a step forwards and ruffled her hair affectionately, "good work by the way, even if it was probably a fluke."

Honoka couldn't help but grin at the backhanded compliment from her sunsengnim, and now with more training she's one step further to stop being weak.


	11. A Master Rememberance

A young Chun-Woo Han was walking towards the cave his sunsengnim lived, wondering if he ever left that place to go to the bathroom or something. He wasn't looking to where he was going, and bumped into someone. "Sorry", he said remembering the lessons his sunsengnim forced into his skull.

"Sorry? Did you hear that Chung-Woo? The little brat said he's sorry."

There were three teenagers around fifteen, sixteen year old sitting on the rails of the bridge looking down on him. The one Chun-Woo Han dumped into was tall and tanned, with lean runner muscles, wearing a simple t-shirt and shorts, while his companions wore more varied and high class clothing.

The one addressed as Chung-Woo chuckled. "Don't be like that Sun Park. Just forgive him and let the kid go."

Sun Park made an exaggerated bow to Chun-Woo Han who had remained with a neutral expression as the older boy let him go. When he got to the edge of the bridge another one of the teenagers appeared in front of him, blocking his path. He knew from experience where this was going, but still he made a token effort to solve this peacefully. "Excuse me, please let me pass."

"I'm sorry", said Chung-Woo, "but in order to pass this bridge you need to pay the toll."

"Toll", replied Chun-Woo Han in a neutral tone, "but the bridge is public, you don't have authority to demand for a toll."

Sun Park came from behind him and he could basically feel the malicious grin on his face. "Oh, but we do have authority", a sound of cracking knuckles came from behind him, "you're trespassing in our territory, and for that you have to pay the toll. Just hand over the cash quickly and nothing will-"

Before he could finish that sentence the young boy turned around with a vicious punch, doubling over the older boy before he raised his feet and hit him on the jaw, making his head bounce back which made the taller opponent fall on the ground unconscious.

"Territory huh?" Said Chun-Woo Han with a malicious grin of his own, "technically my sunsengnim home is nearby, which make it his territory and as his apprentice it's my duty to defend it from low lives like you. Now..." Chun-Woo Han cracked his own knuckles menacingly before slowly walking towards the other teenagers who looked between horrified and angered at him.

"Who wants to be the first?"

~~O~~

"You idiot".

Chun-Woo Han was looking down as his sunsengnim looked at him with disappointment.

"Why did you beat those kids? Is that why you asked me to teach you martial arts?"

"But they were charging to use the bridge", tried the young boy, "from everyone too! So I did good in the end, right?"

"You could have ran away from them, or even used another route to come here. Also I'm fairly sure that the thought of others never crossed your mind."

"What's the point of learning martial arts if you can't use it?" Grumbling softly hoping his sunsengnim wouldn't hear.

"None", answered the older man with a sad tone, startling his student, "there is no meaning. However there's also no meaning in raw violence, but I cannot teach you more than what I already know and hope that one day you will find your own path. It would be hypocrite of me to tell you what to do with my teachings, but please don't charge ahead against all problems fist first."

The boy nodded, even if he thought that would be impossible with him.

"Still", tried once more his sunsengnim, "what do you say for yourself?"

Thinking for a moment, Chun-Woo Han shrugged. "At least I won?"

He chuckled a bit, before a smile graced his sunsengnim face. "That was never in doubt Chun-Woo Han."

~~O~~

The Nine Arts Dragon blinked a bit of sleep from his eyes as he stared at his young disciple sitting next to him, performing the breathing techniques. He wondered what kind of dream he had that made his heart ache with longing before his hand went to the cigarrette on his pocket, but he stopped once he looked once more at his apprentice intent look of concentration.

Refraining from having a smoke right now, he resumed his role as a teacher to her and pointed her mistakes and coaxed her into becoming better, much like it was done with him a long, long time ago.


	12. Small Gang Problems

A small problem arose when Honoka and her friends had defeated those middle schoolers. The leader of the group was a junior member of a gang called Snake, a small gang that was starting to gain notoriety quickly, and as a gang member his reputation was in line since he spread that he had lost through trickery to Kenichi, since admitting he had lost to three primary schooler girls was beyond humiliating.

Thus the bullying of her brother started to escalate inside his school. Her brother would grit his teeth and endure it, previously because he didn't think his parents could help him with it other than transferring him to another school, which would simply change the location of his problem. Now however he endured it in order not to worry his parents as they were still worried about their daughter, and he wanted to project an image of strength to his sister in order not to worry her.

He was always terrible at keeping secrets however, so of course both parents and her sister knew what was going on soon enough while he remained clueless about their knowledge.

Lost about what to do, Honoka went to consult with her sunsengnim.

The answer she got wasn't what she wanted.

"I really can't help much there. What do you expect me to do? Beat up the kids myself? Unless they cause trouble near our school again I can't do much about it. If I were a teacher of his school, then perhaps I could try something but since I'm not my hands are tied. Besides, I'm of the opinion that you should deal with your problems yourself. If he let others fight his battles, he will never get away from the umbrella of bullying even as he becomes an adult, and trust me things get worse as an adult if you are being bullied."

"But he doesn't know how to defend himself!" Said Honoka, distressed at the bit of information her sunsengnim shared. To be bullied until adulthood? What kind of madness is this? "He's not very good at fighting and father don't let him learn martial arts until he turns sixteen due to an incident when he was younger!"

"And yet he also get into this kind of trouble due to his own twisted sense of justice I take it."

"Twisted?" Honoka asked, not really understanding what he meant with that remark.

"Somehow he believes that he must be the target of bullying instead of letting others be picked on, or at least he makes himself a target by trying to help those being picked on with no regards to himself, even if he might potentially regreet it later."

Honoka slowly nodded since that was an accurate view of what her brother did. Sure a lot of the bullying he suffered was nothing more than the bullies singling him out as a target, but sometimes he would attract heat from other bullies while trying to defend the weak even if he was the weakest in the room. Not only that but he never, ever actually asked for help against the bullies. He learned to run away from them, but Honoka never saw him involve other people, even her parents or teachers, into his problems.

"Besides, even if I wanted to get involved I can't because I need to stay low key. And neither can you unless you want to deal a blow to your brother ego and sense of self worth. I know the type of people your brother is, he would be devastated if his young, cute, harmless little sister took out his problems for himself."

Honoka winced at that, knowing that it was spot on. "Then what can we do?"

"It's about time I teach you something practical anyway if you're going into fights this early. How to throw a punch, how to block, how to dodge, how to kick and not injure yourself in the process." He stretched him back before turning to the teachers room. "Since it's quite basic, generic stuff, I wouldn't be against other people watching it."

As Honoka watched her sunsengnim retreat, she had a small smile on her face, once more the opinion of her sunsengnim rising.

~~O~~

"In this exercise you clench your fist this way", he shows his audience how to form a fist and how to perform the necessary movements not to injure yourself while going all out. "Don't forget the steps, they're simple but you will need to mix and match them later once you get used to it."

"That's incredible Wu-san, what are those?" Honoka mother asked with her usual demure tone, "they look kind of familiar..."

It was a good thing that Chun-Woo Han was an experienced smooth talker. "You probably saw it on documentaries or ads. It's a dance form from a Korean circus performance called Southern Yard Play."

The new nurse, Shiho Lee, explains further. "Wu-san proposed and volunteered to oversee some extra physical education to his students after the school hours, and the parents can also participate if they want."

Alongside Honoka was her mother, her brother, Sakura and Hinata with their families alongside a couple more kids that often stayed late at school to play and were curious at what was going on.

Sakura parents were kind looking adults, her father having a thin build with a goatee on his face, while her mother had a figure that could be called stunning and kind green eyes, and her younger brother was with the other male students trying himself to follow the movements. Hinata came with her uncle, which was the twin of her father, and he had long smooth jet black hair and had a somber expression, though he often smiled at his niece as she did the movements, while her little sister watched in rapt attention at her sister performing the steps, sometimes stumbling on her feet as she couldn't both watch her sister and pay attention to what she was doing at the same time.

"Maybe", Honoka mother allowed, "but somehow those forms look familiar in a different way. I wonder why?"

"I'm sure it's just a weird case of Deja vù." Said Honoka's sunsengnim with a smile.

~~O~~

More privately Honoka was taught Ancient Korean Martial Arts, more specifically one of the many branches of the Taekkyeon he was taught by his own sunsengnim. While the Black Heaven and Earth is essentially a formless martial art, each new master would incorporate it with another existing martial arts system, effectively creating many branches of her style even if there was always one master and one successor to the Black Heaven and Earth.

Chun-Woo Han sunsengnim had learned ancient korean martial arts and taught them to his apprentice, while Chun-Woo Han himself learned various styles and incorporated into his own, though he kept the foundation in taekkyeon he learned from his sunsengnim.

Combining both Southern Yard Play and Taekkyeon Honoka had the start of a solid grounding in martial arts techniques, and as time went by she would become a fearsome fighter know by her graceful acrobatic movements inherited from those two styles.

For now though, she went from 'a danger to herself' to 'novice' in terms of skill.

If it was the Honoka of three months ago she wouldn't be contemplating her next move, but then again as her sunsengnim so eloquently said before, she had already snapped and was a bit out of there.

At least that's what her sunsengnim thought when found out the stunt she pulled out next.

~~O~~

Walking with her white, generic looking hoodie concealing her face she wandered into the know territory of the snake gang, more precisely the one where the leader of the group of bullies that targeted her brother spent his time. It was a simple affair to get the location of their hideout, and she used the time she usually spent on her own school training to do this stake out.

'Accidentally' she bumped into a mean looking teenager near their hideout, and to her luck he sported gang insignia, meaning she hit her mark.

"Hey brat, apologize for that!"

Lightly bowing she made to continue her walk, triggering the predictable reaction of the teen when he went to grab her.

Dodging his feeble attempt with great speed and countering his attack with strength no nine year old girl should posses unless they're on steroids, she hit him directly on the solar plexus making him lose all air on the lungs, doubling him over. She finished him off with an uppercut on the jaw, sending him to sleep. The other gang members that watched this happen where shocked for a couple of instant before the leader snarled. "Get him!"

Not being a fool, she retreated while muttering how sad it was for them to assume she was a boy just because she beat them up, but the fact that she did beat them up already lifted her mood.

While she could run faster than then due to ki enhancement they knew their territory well and were quick into her heels. Fortunately for her the Southern Yard Play training gave her ample acrobatic proficiency, and as she passed through crates, fences and stairs, she remembered what her sunsengnim said before.

Don't be afraid and don't break concentration, the results will show themselves.

While they all went after Honoka, they each had different speeds, and she made sure to pick the fastest and the straggler often enough, beating them with hit and run tactics behind obstacles, not staying still for long and always restarting the chase, making her pursuers both tired and frustrated. At some point they stopped chasing her even if she wasn't going that fast, and she knew she won.

This state of affairs would repeat itself for the next few days, with Honoka bloodying them over and over, and starting the a new legend among the delinquents in the city.

The legend of the White Ghost.


	13. A Brother's Musing

Shirahama Kenichi, an average first year middle school student and big brother to Shirahama Honoka was currently taking a beat down.

Which while wasn't nearly as common as one might think considering his personality and fame of being a bully magnet, it was still a regular sight in his school. Specially now that he started to get into more trouble lately.

He couldn't help it, he simply couldn't. Before when the bullies came, he simply folded and bowed when he simply couldn't run away, taking their abuse silently and sometimes even with a smile on his face. Things changed after his sister had been kidnapped though.

While he knew he had nothing to do with the incident, nothing he did or didn't during that day made any difference about his sister fate, that in the end she was returned home safe and sound, he still felt incredibly responsible for what happened. Deep down he knew that was an irrational thought with no basis in reality, but still it shaped his current thinking process.

If only I had been stronger, if only I could have protected her. If he simply weren't such a failure as a brother. If only he were the actual hero that his sister thought he was, long, long ago.

Thus he vowed to never again to simply run away from his problems, to always help the weak if he were able, and he would be damned if he ever admitted that he wasn't able.

Because of that he couldn't let when another student was being intimidated for his lunch money, and without hesitation he went after the kid to help him, and in doing so he shifted their focus from their previous target to himself. The result was predictable, discounting how Kenichi wasn't a fighter by any means, it was two against one and they were quick to beat up on him.

'That's alright', he thought, 'at least the other student is safe'.

*Flash*

"What's that?" Said one of the delinquents looking around, when he found someone with long ears, an evil looking face and if they squinted their eyes they could see a pair of antennae on top of his head. Possibly.

"Ka ka ka ka! You two are really brave to do this kind of thing on school grounds, but now I have solid proof about what you two are doing. You're done for!"

The two delinquents looked at each other. "Get him!"

"Oh shit!" And the evil looking student took to a run, two pursuers hot on his trail.

Gingerly Kenichi stood up, feeling the bruises in his body. To be honest with himself they didn't hit nearly as hard as he thought, and lately he's taking their blows much better than before. 'Must be the exercises I'm doing with Honoka', he thought to himself. The circus exercises he was learning that improved his overall health by leaps and bounds was a bit too strenuous at first, but now he can perform most of them good enough. Not only that but due to the increased fitness he could now at least start to attempt to fight back against the bullies, and even if by now there wasn't much progress on that front he still felt better about himself.

Once he was back on his class he meet with his bad friend, Niizuma Eiji, the evil looking student from earlier. He wasn't nearly as bad as he initially thought since he often helps him escape the bullies, even if from time to time he engaged in some light bullying of his own against Kenichi, but Kenichi himself didn't took those attempts too seriously since Niizuma hit far less harder than even the weakest regular bully of his.

"So, did you found something about the one who helped me back then?" Asked Kenichi to his bad friend, who looked annoyed at his question.

"'Thank you Niizuma for helping me', 'you're welcome Shirahama, that's what friends are for'."

Kenichi rolled his eyes. "Don't pretend you helped me just out of altruism, you did that to get more blackmail material for later."

"That's true", Niizuma shamelessly admitted, "but does it hurt to thank me?"

Kenichi made the cross sign before looking at Niizuma. "God bless you."

The evil looking boy hissed in pain before glaring at his friend. "Not funny."

"On the contrary, I find it highly hilarious."

"Do you want to hear about him or not?"

Kenichi nodded, and Niizuma took a notepad from his pocket. "The boy is apparently a very talented martial artist since he took down so many gang members by now, though he's on the short side people assume he is in the middle school. No one heard him talk yet, but they call him White Ghost due to his ability to sneak past his pursuers and extensive use of hit and run tactics to deal with his opponents."

"Thank you Niizuma, you're not so bad after all." Kenichi honestly said, making his friend crackle with glee.

"One day I will find this boy, and then my ambitions will come to fruition! HAHAHAHAHAHA!"

Kenichi tuned out the other boy before he thought back on when he was rescued. It could only have been the boy since he's targeting know bullies of his for a while now, and he had been helping him since the time when he and his little sister and friends were ambushed before. He wanted to thank him for the help, but also to tell him to stop to beat up on those bullies for him, since he wanted to deal with his problems himself. Granted he might be after those bullies for other reasons other than helping him, and him benefiting from it might be entirely coincidental.

Of course, he ignored the few rumors that the bullies had been beaten up by a trio of primary school girls, since that sounded absurd even on his own head, and it was Honoka that was on the list of people that beat them up. His little, innocent, sweet, traumatized little sister.

Her and her friends against three middle school bullies? Simply absurd.


	14. Peaceful Days

The small gang started to ease up on her brother bullying, so Honoka stopped sneaking behind the school grounds to beat them up. Her sunsengnim always knew when she went away to beat them up, not really saying anything other than increasing her training pace whenever she came back with so much as a small bruise.

Since things were starting to calm down and get back to a semblance of normalcy resembling the times pre kidnapping, Honoka cut off on the training a little bit to focus on her studies.

~~O~~

"It's always nice to study with you Hinata-chan, you're so smart! I'm sure what I would do if I didn't had your notes to help me. I would probably fail so hard my parents would disinherit me on the stop."

Hinata gently poked at her friend's cheek in admonishment at the implication. While it was good that Honoka was comfortable enough to joke like that once more the humor of the act had since long been lost.

"H-h-honoka-chan, y-you h-have to read your o-own b-book too, n-not only my notes."

Hinata stuttering had also eased from before, now more an annoying habit than a sign of ever present nervousness.

Honoka pouted cutely at her friend before shamelessly going back to her friend's notes. Sakura giggled at the sight of both of her friends going at it.

While both Honoka and Hinata had changed and were starting to go back to the way they were, Sakura had remained the same at first before she started changing little by little. She took to wearing a white bandana on her forehead, and it wasn't a day since she got her fighting gloves that she didn't wore them. Some teachers had a problem with her new additions, but Honoka's sunsengnim himself allowed it on his class.

She also started to roughhouse with some of the boys, entering into play fights with kids older than herself, which almost got her into trouble once, and going in and out of the karate and judo clubs of the school. Since she couldn't join both of them at once she did the next best thing and became a 'helper', an outsider that went to clubs to help them once in a while, alternating between the clubs she frequented. Except she went there every day, and if it weren't for the fact that she was really, really good she couldn't pull it off.

She also spent some time training with the circus performance Honoka sunsengnim keep at it, and Honoka suspected her friend knew very well what those movements and techniques were meant for. Well, Honoka suspected that Hinata also knew about them, but Hinata appeared on those meeting only once a week t most, and she suspected she did so only to spend some time with her friends.

Hinata poked at Sakura on her arm. "You t-too S-s-sakura-chan."

Sakura grinned sheepishly at her friend. "But math is soooo~ boring..."

~~O~~

A few months passed, and her sunsengnim confirmed that he would leave the country at the end of the year, when she graduates to an upper class. Because of that she decided to train even harder than before, and using that extra training time with her sunsengnim to learn more about him.

One day out of the blue she asked: "Can you tell me more about yourself?"

He paused what he was doing for a moment, taking a cigarette from his pocket and lighting it up. "Do you really want to hear about me or you want to hear an idealized version of your sunsengnim?"

"I... don't really understand?"

Chun-Woo Han sighed. "I'm not a nice person Honoka, sometimes I perform good acts yes, but they're not something I do as a matter of course. They're more like flights of famsy than an actual sense of altruism. If I were to give you any examples to follow you would go down a dark path, is that the sunsengnim you want?"

Honoka didn't hesitated in her answer. "You're still my sunsengnim, with the good and bad, but how can I form an opinion if I barelly know you?"

Chun-Woo Han snorted, shaking his head. "And here I thought you were a good girl, but here you are hanging out whit a bad guy like me?"

Honoka giggled at that. "Well, you better take responsibility for corrupting me then!"

"Cheeky brat", he said fondly while ruffling her hair, "if you must know, I'm a rather violent person all things considered. I prefer to smash the front gate and challenge everyone, which is simple and straightforward. I'm not fit for subtlety, never was and never bothered with it."

Honoka nodded, somehow having that image inside of her head about him.

"I also killed many people", he said in a somber tone, "some of them deserved it and I don't lose any sleep of their deaths, in fact some of my most fond memories are seeing their life escape through their eyes as I squeeze it away with my bare hands", he said with a malicious smile making Honoka shiver, "while others... others I didn't meant to. Didn't wanted to, but circumstances forced me to kill those people, either through accident or purposeful cause. I regret those deaths every day."

Honoka stayed quiet, waiting for her sunsengnim to give her a reason for his actions, which he did after a deep sigh.

"My sunsengnim committed a mistake once when he was young, and was exiled to a cave never to see the outside world. I stumbled into his cave when I was around your age, and he taught me and raised me into the man I am now. I wanted to save him from his exile in the cave, so I entered a tournament to be the strongest and use that influence to gain the pardon for my sunsengnim. Sadly things didn't go the way I planned."

"Someone recognized strength of my style before I could make my plea. The Alliance Chief of the Martial Arts Alliance of the Murin world, basically the highest authority of the largest martial arts association in the pacific which encompasses most of the eastern Asia and the Western American countries."

"He must be someone really important."

"He is THE most important person in the Aliance", said her sunsengnim with distaste, "he had power few people in the world hope to achieve, be they rulers of countries or corporations CEOs, and yet all that power wasn't enough for him". Taking another cigarette from his pocket he lighted it up and took a long drag of it. "He still wanted the secrets of the Black Heaven and Earth."

"When I won the tournament I got the title of Goomoonryong, the Nine Arts Dragon. Apparently it was a social faux pas to win the tournament so through like I did, taking all nine Dragon Seats and techniques by myself. I didn't cared about that at the time and went back to my sunsengnim to give him the news, sure that with this event my name would become even more famous and influential and that soon I could free my sunsengnim, but the Aiance Chief and his cronies beat me to it."

"While I gave the news to my sunsengnim the highest Alliance members came to the cave, accusing my sunsengnim to leaving his exile to teach me the Black Heaven and Earth and the Alliance Chief proposed that he either taught the Black Heaven and Earth technique to him or he would have my head as compensation for breaking his exile."

"What!" Shouted Honoka, outraged. The sunsengnim breaks the law, and his disciple had to pay? Besides what kind of exile was that? They wanted him to stay in a cave until he died of old age or something?

"Because of that my sunsengnim officially broke the exile, getting out of the cave for the first time since I knew him, and drop his fist into his own chest, committing suicide. His last words where that if they ever wanted the Black Heaven and Earth, they had no choice but allow me to leave since otherwise the technique would die with me."

Honoka was silent at the story, tears starting to form on her eyes.

"The rest isn't very exciting. I killed a couple of people in my rage induced rampage, killed more people as time passed by and decided to hide here in Japan for a while until things calm down a bit and my allies give me the all clear to go back to Korea."

Honoks sniffed once and nodded, though a question did remained in her head. How someone that clearly regrets some of what he did can talk about death so easily? How he can kill so easily even when he doesn't want to? Is it something that being raised in the Murin world does? Is it something she will pick upon in the future? She didn't know, and she wasn't sure what to think about it, even if for the most part she respected and admired her sunsengnim.

"And what kind of person was your sunsengnim?" Honoka asked after a few moments.

"He was basically my father, raising me and teaching me." He said with a tone of finality and Honoka nodded, taking the dismissal for what it was. Still one last thing was at the back of her mind.

"Sunsengnim, how come our school is so incredible?"

He looked at her for a moment before shaking his head. "Of course you couldn't know. Follow me."

The two of them went to the back of the school where there were a couple of old, rotten trees that were being off for new ones to be planted and a new garden be created in that spot. Her master looked at a particularly firm tree, and cocked his fist back. The motion wasn't very fast and didn't looked so strong either, but when it impacted the tree it basically exploded the plant like a bomb had been set off inside of it.

"This technique is called Soul-Crushing Strike. By synchronizing the movement of ki inside your body and the striking motion you can create an attack that's much greater than the sum of it's parts, it's basically a straple of my fighting style."

Honoka had her eyes bulged. "That's incredible! Is that why our style is so strong? Because of techniques like that?"

He shook his head. "That's not it, there are other styles that have similar techniques. In fact aside from the breathing technique, there are few native techniques for the Black Heaven and Earth style, which coincidentally the soul-crushing strike is part of. What makes the Black Heaven and Earth so feared is that we have the most efficient Ki Flow technique in existence, not only that but it have a perfect Neutral type. That means it can learn any and all techniques in existence to it's fullest. We can learn all of the Five Heavenly Path styles and their mutually exclusive ki gathering methods, all Nine Dragon Arts from the Murin faction with ease, to the outdated Sei-Dou dual ki methods without restrictions."

Flicks his wrist, and a small ball of fire hovers in the palm of his hand. "I traveled the world and learned as much as I could, learning many techniques and fighting styles, mastering them in weeks to months when normally it would take years to decades to do so, even if they would by definition close certain paths of power. The Black Heaven and Earth not only gives no fucks about it, but I'm confident I'm a much better practitioner of those techniques and styles than their supposed masters."

Honoka could sense how smug her sunsengnim felt, and he had all the right to be smug. After all with her style she coud in theory learn ALL THE THINGS, regardless of it's source. That was amazing!

"As a fortunate side effect of our ki flow being so efficient, that means the standard natural reinforcement from circling your ki on your body is at least an order of magnitude higher than normal. If I ever teach you an actually advanced ki reinforcement technique you could probably go toe to toe against many masters before even hitting puberty."

Honoka couldn't help it, but she felt like drooling.

'Wait a minute, I'm actually drooling! How gross!'

"The Murin world is rather dangerous", Honoka noted before going back to her training.

"As a Murinim you should get used to it." He said taking a last drag of his cigarette and tossing the butt on a nearby trashcan.

"I'm a Murinim already?"

"Of course, you're learning from me my secrets, like it or not you're already part of this world."

Honoka had mixe feelings on being equaled to a bunch of murderous people that lived by the rule of strength even in this modern era, but by spending months with her sunsengnim she felt closer to him so anything that associate herself with him was mostly alright in her book.

Besides, walking this path was one she choose for herself all those months ago, and she wasn't going to turn back on it so easily.

"Now lets get back to your training. If you master the ki deceleration method, you can train your body basically anywhere without suspicion since you will be artificially putting pressure into your body with your ki, strengthening your muscles much more than normal while technically using much less effort."

Honoka nodded and followed her instructions to the letter. After all soon she would be separated from her sunsengnim and she didn't want to disappoint him.


	15. Months Tickle By

As time passed the Snake gang started to get bold once more, since they got new members and grew in size since them. Now it wasn't that rare to see the people on the streets being harassed or the gang having meetings on the front of convenience stores, even a single instance of oyaji-gari being reported on the local news, though nothing to indicate that it was actually the Snake gang itself. There were genuine reasons for Honoka's hometown to have a gang problem, but since the matter went back to economics she didn't take much interest into it.

That meant Kenichi would be in trouble soon, if the previous trend of his continues. With that in mind Honoka dragged him into more Southern Yard Play training. If anything, he will learn how to dodge.

~~O~~

Kanten Wu finished to tie the rope a little bit above his knees, high enough to provide a challenge, not high enough to cause injuries. Since there were mats on the ground the risk of injury was also lower.

"The key to this is balance", said the teacher, "in order to remain upright you need to pay close attention to your footing and your midsection which will provide with stability. If the rope swings from left to right it means your footing isn't firm enough."

Honoka, Sakura and later Hinata took to this exercise like a fish to the water, learning how to slowly walk on the rope on the first day and learning how to walk quickly on it as the days passed. It didn't help that the three of them trained more on this skill outside the allowed meeting time, but even so Kenichi managed to slowly walk the full length of the rope eventually.

"Honoka! I did it!"

"You did it oniichan!" Said his sister happy for her older brother.

"It was quite quick too", remarked Kanten Wu at the younger boy, "usually it takes months to walk all the way of the rope if you train only so much like you do."

Kenichi blushed at the praise, scratching his head and laughing, before he turned his face to the side and saw Sakura doing flips on the rope, then Hinata walking graciously from one end to another as if she was on solid ground and finally his little sister even taking a run from one end to another, even if she fell down from time to time.

He looked back at the older man. "They're... special", Kanten Wu tried, "and I bet they train more on this than you do."

"I guess..." He said in a dejected tone, having lost some of his sense of accomplishment once he remembered the other three little girls got this exercise earlier than himself.

"Cheer up", said the teacher, "the other kids are still trying to get halfway there. You did good."

"Thanks Wu-san, I will keep training hard to become as good as my sister."

"That's all I ask for you to do. You might want to try it on your own home. Just tie the rope on two posts and walk it's lenght."

"Hmm, we do have a small backyards where he can try that. I will see if my father will allow me to set it up."

"Good, now join in back with your sister on the fun."

"Hai!"

~~O~~

"You know", Honoka said out of the blue, "it's strange. I mean, while both me and my friends got the hang of it first, Kenichi was the next one that managed to do it himself, but he was always bad at physical stuff since he was little. I wonder how that happened?"

"Bad? How so?" Asked her sunsengnim.

"Well, he never showed much talent with physical activities, like sports or anything like that, and he always got tired fast. I thought that it ran in the family having low stamina or dexterity, but as much as he complained at first he now keeps up with the training really easy. I wonder why that is."

"Oh, that's because he have a Yang-type body. I checked it the other day when he scrapped the knee on the ground."

"He has a what now?"

"Basically the Yang-type body is an inversion of what you had. Basically his body is geared to produce more ki than normal, but just having the high potential doesn't mean he can use it well or have the mental fortitude to keep at it. When untrained he can get tired as fast as any other person, but if pressed he can last for much longer than he have any right to last, standing strong when others would literally pass out from physical exhaustion."

"I didn't knew that", who knew that Honoka's brother could be so amazing? "I thought he also had physical problems."

"Not really, a Yang-body means he's the epitome of physical health, at least compared with others in similar situation as him. He's probably just lazy, and as someone without the proper training discipline he have certain mental blocks around his way of thinking."

Honoka nodded for a moment, taking it in. "By the way, your friend also have it, a stupidly rare 6-Yang body type, meaning she produces a lot of ki and will increase her physical abilities with minimal effort."

"Woah! She's amazing! I didn't knew that either! I'm a bit jealous that she have so much talent."

"You shouldn't. A cured Yin-type body is a very strong gift, even if yours was a mild case, and you also have the spirit medicine effects still chaging your body and making it stronger, something your friend doesn't have."

"Hmm, I guess you're right."

"Of course I am, now get back to work on your breathing techniques."

~~O~~

One day Honoka, Sakura and Hinata were eating her lunch when suddenly Sakura looked up from her food. "We're leaving the city", she said in an uncharacteristic somber tone, "at the end of the year. Father got a large promotion and will be reassigned to Tokyo."

"I-I'm l-leaving too", continued Hinata from her own side of the table, "w-we will b-be moving t-to the M-m-mie region."

They both looked at Honoka expecting her reaction, and she only blinked. "Huh, guess that's a thing." She said a little shaken by what she heard before shaking her head. "Well, we will need to have a send off party when the time comes! Don't worry though, I will organize everything! There will be your favorite food and games and stuff!"

Her two friends looked at each other, and Hinata was ready to say it wasn't needed, but at the look of determination on her friend's face she faltered, and just nodded. Sakura gave an even present grin, though this one didn't quite reach her eyes.

The mood worsened, Honoka didn't knew how her week could get worse, however she did forgot about one last departure that was quickly approaching, and her sunsengnim would quickly remind her of that fact.

Violently.


	16. A Teacher's Final Gift

Time passed quickly, and soon both Honoka's friends and her sunsengnim would depart to their new lives. Before that though her sunsengnim asked for her to accompany him on a walk towards a certain building on the city during the weekend. She didn't quite catch the excuse he used to her family, but apparently it worked like a charm.

Getting into the car her sunsengnim would be driving they rode for a while until they came across a small, abandoned building on the industrial section of the city. Once inside Honoka could see that the place had seen better days and it was once a factory of sorts, but it was stripped clean of machinery now with only stains and some few random junk littering the place.

Honoka looked at her sunsengnim in confusion for a moment. "What are we going to do today sunsengnim?" Her face brightened as an idea occurred to her. "Are you going to teach me a brand new technique? Better tips on the Black Heaven and Earth technique? How about the Soul-Crushing Strike-"

"You better dodge this."

Before Honoka could respond she twisted her body and head to the side on pure reflex, evading a direct hit but still taking the blunt of the attack, strong enough to make her stumble backwards with her rolling back to better get some distance between herself and her assailant.

It was only when she fully regained her bearings that she fully realized that her sunsengnim had attacked her.

"Wha, what?"

With measured steps Chun-Woo Han came closer to his student, making her involuntarily step back at the same time. "My own sunsengnim fought with me once to test if I truly deserved to keep being his student."

Honoka stared at her sunsengnim still unsure about what was really going on.

"In other words", clarified Chun-Woo Han, "we're going to fight one-on-one, and you must impress me, otherwise I will make sure that you will never be able to practice martial arts again. If you don't defend yourself you might even die."

For a moment it's as if time is standing still, before something in Honoka's mind settles into place, an epiphany coming to her.

When she first set herself to learn from her sunsengnim she vowed that she would follow into a world where strength ruled everything. In order to protect herself, in order to protect her friends, in order never to be helpless again.

If she retreat now, she would be back to her pathetic self who couldn't do anything. While this path she decided for herself would be one full of strife, she would gladly shoulder that burden.

With her chosen path once more reaffirmed, she nodded to her sunsengnim and set into a stance she was taught. Chun-Woo Han himself stared at her for a few moments before nodding himself. He doesn't set himself into a stance, but Honoka knew that he meant business just by the slight shift in his posture.

Without asking for permission Honoka dashed forwards to attack him, mixing punches with feints in the hopes of hitting him, her forms and technique in line with what she was taught, even if she didn't had much experience against real life opponents in this kind of setting.

That was for nothing though, as she felt something hit her on her solar plexus feeling the air leaving her lungs, a follow up kick hitting her on the head and sending her back tumbling. If it were the previous Honoka the fight would have ended right then and there, but now Honoka had the determination to press on and rolled with the blow, returning to a stop with shallow breaths while quickly standing up.

"The Black Heaven and Earth is more than it's breathing techniques", said her sunsengnim, "it's how to maintain the flow of ki even without air, how to never stop a technique even while being stuck."

Honoka nodded, and returned to her stance intently observing her opponent. Not taking her eyes from him even for an instant, she managed to see his movements and with a great surge of inspiration she knew when to act, twisting her body in a circular motion to mostly avoid her attack and at the same time returning an elbow attack on him. It was blocked at the last moment, but Honoka realized that her sunsengnim was surprised by this turn of events.

He immediately counters with a punch of his own with his free hand, but as if a switch had been flipped on she tilted her head to the side while turning her body a little more, avoiding most of the blow's impact and allowing her finish turning while extending her other fist and scoring a hit on him, even if it was a weak one.

They both separated after that, and Chun-Woo Han looked pensive.

"I see, looks like you had some special talent and teaching you my school secrets wasn't a mistake."

This time he does set into an actual stance, instantly putting Honoka on edge.

"Let's see how far your genius will go."

She would meet his challenge, but first she need to figure out what she need in order to properly fight him. She quickly reached the conclusion that she need more speed. He was simply too fast for her to either properly land a blow or fully dodge his attacks, and he was holding back a great deal.

She was already enhancing herself with natural ki reinforcement, but that didn't seen to be working right now. How else then would she bridge the gap in speed? Remembering for a moment the Soul-Crushing Strike, how it gathered ki into the hand and released it violently alongside the motion of striking. If she try and apply that same principle to movement...

Her sunsengnim was already in front of her, and once more inspiration stuck. She gathered ki on her feet and stepped backwards, feeling only the wind passing over her head and seeing the shocked look of her sunsengnim. Reversing the directions she rushed forwards with her fist ready to deliver a blow, and in another instant she was in front of him inside his guard with her fist midway to his gut.

Only for herself to hit nothing in return.

"Jin and Tweh", came a voice from behind making her turn quickly in surprise, "to advance and retreat, two basic walking techniques yet vital in a fight between Murinim. Did you came up with that right now?" After receiving her nod he continued. "Need a bit more practice, but a very good first try for someone who never tried it before. The more I see you fight, the more I'm being convinced that teaching you the Black Heaven and Earth technique wasn't a mistake. Now let's continue Shirahama Honoka."

Too much adrenaline was pumping on Honoka's vein for her to realize that he didn't called her either 'squirt' or 'brat' this time around.

She continued to observe him, slowly walking around him before another fist suddenly shot towards her face and she barely managed to dodge it, the blow clipping her shoulder and still being enough to send her tumbling back a couple of paces.

"Don't just stand around!" Barked her sunsengnim, "if you're unsure of what to do either attack or retreat, but don't just stand around watching!"

Gritting her teeth she ignores the accumulated pain and is attacks, charging at him with a kick of her own, but it was dodged at the last minute and he countered her attack with a simple punch she took to the face.

With a grimace she sent a few punches and feints before retreating with her new speed, but her sunsengnim was after her like a cat chasing a mouse and they both spent almost a whole minute running around, which resulted in Honoka being too tired for the fight to last longer.

Before her sunsengnim could end the fight with the last word she really, really wanted to punch him in the face at lest once, so she charged with all pretense of defense lost. She couldn't block his attacks without it being broken and she couldn't fully dodge his attacks anyway, so defending at this point became useless since she was already on her last legs.

The only way to finish this in a satisfying manner for herself was to attack, attack, attack!

With a burst of ki she rushed forwards, gathering ki on her fist, letting out a battlecry.

"Ooooohhhh!" With a jump she punched with all her might at his head, but sadly he dodged it with a contemptuous ease, though his eyes trailed behind the blow before kneeing Honoka on the stomach.

When Honoka landed on the ground she couldn't help it and emptied the contents of her stomach. She was like that for a few minutes, and when she finished her sunsengnim was at her side with a cup of water and some fool smelling substance on a another cup.

"Drink this, it's a spirit medicine that will help you heal faster."

"T... thank you." Gingerly accepting the cup she downed it in a single go, almost puking once more at the nasty taste and drinking greedily from the water cup she was offered.

"I have another spirit medicine for you to take tomorrow to further help your healing, it's a pill so you won't be suffering the awful taste anymore."

"That... actually makes me feel better. Thanks sunsengnim!"

Looking up to her sunsengnim she waited expectantly, before he sighed. "Can't say you're untalented, in fact you could be considered a genius for managing to discover two walking techniques on your own and managing to actually perform the Soul-Crushing Strike correctly-"

"Really!"

"-but you certainly lack experience. Should have sparred more with you I suppose."

Standing up he looked at Honoka. "Now rest and when you're ready we will polish the walking techniques, the Soul-Crushing Strike and then I will teach you what I wanted to show you today. Hopefully it will last you long enough until we meet again."

"What are you going to teach me sunsengnim?"

He smirked at the question.

"One of the techniques that gave me the title of Nine Arts Dragon." He sounded far too amused by this turn of events. "The Dragon Ki to be more precise, it's not flashy but it will serve you well. It's an advanced ki reinforcement technique that greatly improves your strength, speed and toughness. The usual is that it costs a lot of ki to maintain for long periods of time, being good for short fights but bad for longer campaigns. On the other hand since you have the Black Heaven and Earth technique it will be easier for you to master it and learn how to keep it active for long periods of time. While you won't be a real master anytime soon, it should help you deal with a lot of crap throw at you."

"Now let's begin. If you finish quickly I will pay some cake for you."

"Yay cake!"

Shaking his head at the reminder that his student was indeed a small girl, Chun-Woo Han set out to give her his final gift to the girl. They would likely stay away from each other for years, so he wanted to teach her both the walking techniques and the Soul-Crushing Strike, letting her learn them at her own pace, but since she did them on her own he tackled one of the Nine Dragon Arts into the mix.

She was so talented, so determined. He didn't think much of her when he saved the girl from the kidnappers, only considering it his good deed for the day, but now she was his student and she was proving herself to be a prodigy of sorts.

He just hoped that she retained her innocence for a bit longer, but he knew it was a pipe dream, with what the girl had gone through and the kind of life she signed upon once she became his student. He only hopped that she would be strong enough to meet the various challenges that would come her way.


	17. Departures

The time for farewells had come and Honoka had wracked her brain to come up with something so her friends and sunsengnim would remember her by.

"If you gift it from the heart", said her brother once, "no matter what you give them they will like it."

That was overall good advice in Honoka opinion, but she still wanted to give something nice for those she cherished, until she saw something in a store, and counting her meager savings realized she had just enough to buy them.

~~O~~

"What's this?" Asked her sunsengnim when he saw the small pendant on his hand.

"It's supposed to be one of the regalia of Japan, the Kusanagi-no-tsurigi. It's made of stainless steel but it's still quite cool, huh?"

Looking at it Chun-Woo Han could see the small pendant indeed resembled one of the treasures of Japan. "Did you know that I'm Korean? Most Koreans can't stand Japanese due to the lingering hate since world war two and the war crimes your countrymen committed back in the day."

"Really?" Asked Honoka horrified at the prospect, both that her countrymen were the bad guys at some point and that her sunsengnim might have taken offense to her gift.

Grinning, he took her pendant and put it around his neck proudly. "I think 'japanese Lover' on top of the many things they say about me might be just enough to throw those old fossils into a frenzy fit. I will cherish your present always Honoka."

Eyes watering, in a sudden burst of speed she hugged her sunsengnim, making him grunt in surprise before patting her on the head. "At least you're learning fast those techniques."

Kneeling down he looked at his disciple in the eyes, wanting to impart some last minute advice she would need. "Honoka, once you entered the world of Murin things changed. You were graced with power that no one on the normal world will ever have, so you must be cautious. The human body is both tougher than it looks, and weaker than it appears. If you fight without using Ki, it will be far harder for you to cause permanent damage on someone even if you were older and stronger, but even then it would still be possible for you to knock someone out."

"Have you ever seen a boxing match?" Honoka nodded, her father had mixed feelings of her watching such violent sport with him, even if he was a huge fan and wanted his children to enjoy his hobby with him. "When a boxer knocks someone out, when he's out of it for longer than ten seconds they immediately call the medics, or if the referee see they can't continue they stop the fights and call the medics, right?" Once more Honoka nodded.

"In the real world such things doesn't exist. If a man is knocked out, the longer he's stay out of it is an indicator that he might have brain damage. Someone suffers a contusion on the head there's some period of observation, regardless if the source of the hit is a car accident or even a punch to the face. Those kind of things are dangerous and can lead to irreversible brain damage to your opponent or even death."

He stared hard at his disciple. "There's no real 'safe' way to make someone become unconscious. So don't think real world acts like a manga where you can easily subdue someone like that. If you use Ki, you will be dealing far more damage and the risks to kill a non murinim rises to an alarming degree. Even if you hit someone on the gut, with the use of Ki there's a very big chance to cause internal bleeding depending on how strong you attack the person."

Honoka stared shell shocked at the admission. Granted she didn't had much experience with real life fights and the few thugs she fought she only beat them up enough to let them limp back to the holes they crawled into, but what he was talking about was much more serious than that.

"Up until now you were doing only school yard scuffles, but in the future as a murinim, as my disciple, you will have to fight for real, fight for your life. You might end up killing your opponent just to survive." He let her digest those words, and when he was sure she understood what he said he continued, "I want you to be careful with your abilities, to try and not use them against non murinim. But If you ever get into a real fight, if you ever have to kill someone, then I want you to understand that I will NEVER think less of you for that. Even if you are judged, even if you are reviled, even if you are hated, you will always be my dearest disciple."

She nodded, eyes moist from the advice her sunsengnim gave her. She now realized that not only she would live a life of strife, but it was one of death and violence too. Specially now that she had special techniques under her belt, even if they are still a work in progress.

Her sunsengnim patted her on the head before hugging her, which she returned fiercely.

It would be the last time she would see her sunsengnim in a long time.

~~O~~

"Here!" Honoka said to her two friends, "I wanted you two to have this!"

To Sakura she had the Yasakani-no-Matagama, and to Hinata she had the Yata-no-Kagami to present them.

"Thank you Honoka, they must have been expensive!" Said Sakura to her friend, and Hinata nodded shyly.

Honoka just scratched the back of her head embarrassed. It was expensive for her since she used all her savings for those gifts in the end. "Don't worry about it, I just want you girls to have something to remember me by."

They nodded and put their pendants on their necks before noticing something. "Where's yours Honoka?"

Honoka puffed her chest. "Don't you know? I'm the Empress, so I hold the three treasures! I'm just lending you those."

Both Sakura and Hinata looked at each other before tackling her friend to the ground, making her 'eep' in surprise. She tried to protest before both friends started tickling her, and she couldn't help herself anymore.

"Ahahahaha, s-stop, p-please, ahahahahaha!"

Finally taking pity on their friend, both girls collapsed on top of her while laughing themselves.

After calming down Honoka hugged her two friends. "I will miss you two."

"W-we w-will a-a-also miss y-you Honoka-chan." Whispered Hinata to her friend. Sakura nodded, and the three of them stayed like that for a few moments more.

"Please write back alright? At least once a month I will write to you two." They both nodded before Sakura sat up.

"So, did you gave the Kusanagi-no-tsurigi to Wu sensei? After all you like him so much right~" She also made some kissy faces, making Honoka blush at the implication.

"What? Nooooo! He's just", Honoka hesitated, "he's just my friend!"

"Ah, you just hesitated right now! Honoka likes sensei Wu! Honoka likes sensei Wu!" As Sakura said that she started running around.

"Noooo! Come back here!"

Hinata for her part was content with giggling at her two friends antics. She would really miss them.


End file.
